Thanks for the Memories

James grunted and pushed the pad back toward Delia. "Does your friend know that you spied on her? That you're showing people that?" he demanded.

"Spied? I told you, it was an accident. But anyway, I've shown her that recording."

"Really? And what did she say."

"Oh, she fell about laughing. But anyway, I'm not showing it to people; I showed it to you..."

"Showed me her humiliation..."

"Humiliation?" For a moment, Delia looked puzzled. "Oh, I suppose it could look that way. Could be that way, if the people were different. Oh yeah, now I get it... Have you got a sound player on you?"

Puzzled in turn, James pulled a music player out of his pocket. Delia deftly touched it to her pad, told the two devices to talk to each other, and then handed it back. "You didn't hear the soundtrack to that little scene. Here, put your headphones on."

James obeyed, and Delia set the video playing again as it lay on the tabletop between them. Now, James did indeed hear what was said in the apartment as the scene played out. To begin with, there was a soft grunting from the first man, and a soft moaning from the woman -- who did sound happy enough. Then he heard her speak.

"Do come here, you sweet boy... Yes, really, it's fine."

The second man came into view, but neither he nor the first said anything. Then, when the woman took hold of his cock, she spoke again. Delia's cameras evidently had a sensitive, self-adjusting microphone, which picked up everything clearly.

"Oh god, that is gorgeous. I'm really -- oh -- getting to love cock, y'know. Now come here..."

Delia paused the player and smiled at James. "Oh dear, I seem to be doomed to shock you today, don't I?" she said as he looked stunned at her. "I should explain that Ann slept with exactly one man in the first ninety years of her life," she continued. "I'm afraid that she's rather making up for lost time now."

"But still... Being spit-roasted!"

"Beg pardon? What-roasted?"

"Sorry -- slang from when I was much younger."

"It sounds charming. But look, you're missing the point here. Thinking of Ann as a ninety-two-year-old woman doesn't make much sense, really. But she's not really a young woman either. She's Restarted, and that's what Restarted -- well, some Restarted -- find comes naturally. Or maybe there is a little bit of humiliation involved, and she's exploring how much she might enjoy it."

"So you think that that is all okay?"

"Consenting adults and all that. So I take it that you've never tried anything like that yourself, anyway."

****

It was a scruffy apartment where he was living with a couple of friends including Marco, all of them still trying to break into the business, to get noticed. That evening, he and Marco had been out on the town with other people, and then somehow ended up home with Sally, who was working as assistant to a photographer who'd been handling a big catalogue contract lately. James had gone off to the bathroom, and when he came back, it was to discover Marco and Sally entangled, Marco's shirt off and his hands inside Sally's T-shirt, unfastening her bra.

"Oops, sorry," James said.

"No sweat, man," Marco said, looking up at him. "Hey, no need to rush off."

"You two look like you're busy," James said with a shrug.

"Yeah, but there's no need for you to miss out on the fun," said Marco. "Sally would like that, wouldn't you, Sal?"

"Mmm," Sally murmured, looking back over her shoulder at James. He wasn't really sure, at heart, how certain she looked -- but she wasn't saying no, and he was feeling horny -- he'd had hopes about her all evening -- so he advanced into the room as Marco pulled Sally's T-shirt and bra off, and then moved to make space for James. For a couple of minutes, they took one breast each, tonguing Sally's nipples while she caressed their heads, one with each hand, before Marco moved up, first kissing her on the mouth while fondling both her breasts. James decided to move down, unfastening the distressed-denim shorts that Sally was wearing, pushing them and her panties down her legs and off over her kitten-heeled ankle-boots, then probing her blonde-bushed pussy with his tongue; meanwhile, though, Marco was continuing to move up, opening his fly as he went so that his rigid cock sprang out as Sally's face came level with it.

Sally squirmed and twisted round, ending up kneeling on the floor as Marco sat on the sofa. James stood up as she began to suck Marco, who moaned appreciative encouragement at her. James shed most of his clothes, then knelt behind Sally, guiding her legs a little further apart. He probed her cunt with a finger, finding it damp; she didn't respond immediately as her caressed her clitoris with other fingers, but then she raised her ass higher.

Something in the back of his mind that might have been sense spoke to him, and he rummaged among his clothes as Sally used her mouth on Marco, who watched James while looking puzzled. But then, James turned back to the pair while rolling a condom onto his cock, grasped Sally's hips to align himself, and pushed her. He grunted as he found his erection firmly gripped, and felt her inner muscles tighten and relax in time with her audible breathing as she sucked Marco.

James looked Marco in the eye, and Marco grinned at him for a moment before looking back at Sally and tousling her hair. "Nice girl," he said.

James looked at Sally again himself, reaching under her torso with both hands to fondle her breasts and pinch her nipples gently. She murmured softly in her throat, rocking slightly back and forth so that her mouth moved on Marco's cock and her cunt on James's. Marco grunted softly and slumped back on the sofa, and after a moment, he moaned slightly and convulsed.

Sally lifted her face away from him, and James glimpsed a glistening trail of semen on Marco's crotch. Then he concentrated on thrusting into her regularly, firmly, on fondling her breasts as she sat back and up. After a moment, he moved one hand down to her crotch to fondle that, and he felt her hands atop his, one at the breasts, one at the groin.

"Baby..." he murmured in her ear, but she showed no signs of responding to his voice, concentrating instead on moving his hands with her own in a rhythm of her choosing. After perhaps a minute, she sighed softly. It sounded like a small orgasm at best, but James took it as a prompt to stop holding back, and convulsed inside her.

Moments after that, Sally disentangled herself from him and began gathering up her clothes almost immediately, leaving James to dispose of the condom as Marco watched with an ironic half-smile.

"Can I get a taxi?" Sally asked. Marco waved toward the apartment phone.

That was the only evening when that happened -- the only time he ever got Sally into bed, in fact -- and within months, he'd lost touch with both the other two. Marco had slipped out of the business in the end -- he didn't quite have what it took. Sally, James next encountered years later, when she emerged as a photographer herself, whose pictures were noted for their homoerotic and fetishistic imagery. Helena admired her work, used her a few times. James never quite got around to mentioning that evening to Helena.

****

"And the men?" James asked, scrabbling for something to say.

"Oh, they're a couple of waiters from a restaurant round here. We went there together, actually. They flirted with her then -- they flirt with all the female customers -- and she flirted right back, hard. She's still got more enthusiasm than subtlety. I really thought that she scared them off, but obviously I was wrong."

"Do they know about that recording?"

"They should know about cameras, shouldn't they? But I imagine that their reputations would survive, even if I let more people see the video. Like I said, they're terrible flirts."

"Hmm." James found that he was confused, although thirty years in a pretty decadent business had left him, as he thought, more than broad-minded.

"But anyway," Delia said, tapping the pad, "perhaps you should look at this a different way."

"How's that?"

"It's really not very difficult for the Restarted to get laid, you know. Think about it -- they look young and slim, they're enthusiastic, their health implants say they're a hundred percent fine... They're sex on legs, really. So it sounds like your Helena is getting interested, and you're the obvious place for her to start. But if you turn her down often enough, she may decide to make a completely new start, and find somebody else."

"She... I don't think that she..."

"Don't assume too much, James. She'll have fuzzy memories of her past, but apparently, they always seem a bit remote. And if you tell her that she doesn't seem like your wife, well, she may take that at face value. Perhaps that would suit you fine -- I don't know. But I suggest that you need to decide whether it does suit you, while you've still got the choice."

James gazed at her. "Thank you for your advice," he said at length, and drained the last of his coffee.

"No trouble. Where are you going now?"

"For a long walk. You're certainly right about one thing -- I need to make some decisions, and I find a walk clears my head."

Delia smiled, not unsympathetically. "Best of luck, whatever you decide," she said.

James glanced back at her as he left the room, and saw that she was still sitting over her coffee cup, gazing at him with a thoughtful expression.

He did take a long walk, although by the end, he wasn't sure if he was any more certain of anything than when he started. When he finally returned to the leased apartment, he opened the door with his thumb and voiceprint, stepped inside, and then paused. Distant sounds suggested that something was running -- the shower, maybe? Could the cleaners have operated it for some reason? Or maybe the sound was a plumbing leak?

The sound stopped. James frowned, and spoke to the microphone by the lock. "House," he asked, "is there any sign of intruders?"

"No unauthorised occupants present," the apartment's systems said after a momentary pause. James frowned again, and made his way into the lounge area. A second after he closed the door, another door opened on the far side of the room.

"Hi," said Helena.

She was wearing one of his bathrobes -- of course, any clothes that she'd left in the place after she went into the hospital had gone into storage -- and he noticed that she was wearing it just right. She hasn't lost her touch, he reflected; even with something as simple as that, there were ways to make it hang over the shoulders and to loosely tie the belt that made a difference. She was just brushing her short, steel-grey hair, which looked like she'd just finished drying it, and she smiled at him casually.

"What -- what are you doing here?" he demanded.

"It's my apartment, I gather," she answered calmly but with a smile. "It's funny -- I don't remember it very well, but the door lock still remembered me."

"But how did you get here?"

"Somebody got me a cab, actually."

"Who? Oh, hold on -- was it that Delia Edwards woman?" he guessed.

"No, actually. It was Doctor Molyneux. But you're right, I did meet Delia..."

"Molyneux? Is she supposed to let her patients wander off in public like this?"

"She's not supposed to keep people prisoners when they're free adults, I don't think. She said it'd do me good to get out a little."

"But what if the building hadn't let you in?"

"Oh, she called it first. And actually, Delia came along to make sure I was okay."

James sat down hard in an armchair. "This is damnably irresponsible of them," he declared.

Helena remained standing, but leant on the back of another chair while she stared at him. "Doctor Molyneux is my doctor," she said. "She's the one who makes those judgements, you know."

James sighed. "I suppose. Anyway, I hope she's expecting you back."

"Not until tomorrow, if I don't want to go," Helena replied. "She says that it's only because Restarting is such a new thing that they keep people in so long. And because a lot of the patients don't have anywhere to go. But I'm lucky -- we've still got this place."

"So you're planning to sleep here? This place only has the one bed, you know."

"Yes, I saw that." Helena grinned. "And don't you dare start talking about you sleeping on the sofa."

"Oh, good grief," James muttered. "I'm sure that Doctor Molyneux didn't have it in mind for you to, well..."

"You'd be surprised." Helena was still grinning. "I gather that she's told you I'm completely healthy, and yes, she's said that sex would be fine. And I am a responsible adult, you know. Unlike some people, I even have a certificate to prove it."

"Oh good god. Just because you can, doesn't mean that you should. And I've tried to tell you -- if Restarting makes you such a new person, I'm not sure that we can just start over like that."

"I don't see why not. I fancy it enough, damn it. And we are still legally married, tra-la-la. I gather."

"Look," James said, "you're... You look young enough to be my daughter. In fact, when I look at you, I can't helping feeling a bit paternal..."

"Oh no," Helena interrupted. "Uh-uh. That is one place where you do not want to go."

"What do you mean?"

"I may have lost a few things," she explained, "but I still remember some stuff from our time together. Like that whole week we spent holed up in the Ritz in Paris, or that time you wrecked a five-hundred-Euro dress just to get at my boobs a bit faster, or Rome...."

"Okay, okay." James said unhappily, raising his hand to stop her recital. "So you're my wife, and this treatment has the side effect of giving you the urges of a ... teenager, it seems..."

"Not just the urges, actually," she said, glancing down at her own body.

"...Whatever. But if I'm your husband, shouldn't I treat you with a bit of respect? Not take advantage of this passing ... medical effect?"

"It's not just passing. I've been feeling like this for days. And it's not a medical effect -- it's me feeling young again. It's me being young again. And isn't there something about the wedding ceremony about honouring me with your body?"

"I don't remember."

"Neither do I. It's very sad, you know, for a woman to forget her own wedding. But that was in the words when I was young. I remember that very clearly." Helena pouted. "But look, all I'm saying is that you're worrying too much. However I look, I'm not some messed-up model who wants a father figure; I'm you're wife, I'm an adult woman, and frankly, I could do with a fuck."

"Is that how you see it?" James said with a scowl.

"Yes," said Helena, "and I don't see the problem with that." She unfastened the belt of the robe, and threw it off with a shrug. It slipped to the floor, and Helena, who had been wearing nothing else, stepped around the chair she'd been leaning against and advanced across the room toward James.

He gasped. Although he'd seen Helena often enough in lightweight hospital gowns or shorts and singlets since she'd been Restarted, this was the first time that he'd seen her naked, and the full effect of her new appearance hit him like a blow. The process left patients with no body fat to speak of, and the doctors then advised them to take enough exercise to make sure that what they developed was muscle rather than flab. Helena had responded to this with a flash of her old familiar single-minded willpower, spending hours in the hospital gymnasium. That video had shown that Delia's friend Ann had a youthfully slender body, but Helena was way beyond that, with the visible whipcord musculature of an Olympic sprinter -- and she moved like a panther.

Helena paused at James' startled look, and glanced down at her body, although she seemingly misunderstood his response. "Sorry," she said, "the process took away my boobs, and I know you always liked those. The doctors say that they should come back..."

"That's not the point, but... They're fine, honestly. But you ... look, the more I see of you,literally, the less you seem like the Helena I remember. And if I want anybody, that's who I want."

"You don't want this? Fuck it, James!" She was almost shouting at him now. "I know what men want! That's been half my job for fifty years! Don't tell me that this isn't a body that men would want!"

"It's a great body," James said quietly, "but I'm not the randy little bastard you dragged into that bathroom thirty years ago. Damn it, Helena," he said breathing deeply, "I still think of my wife the way she -- the way that you used to be. You're not her, and however good you look, you can't just walk in here and use me to -- to scratch your new itches."

"My itches? You think this is just me getting my rocks off?" Helena stopped dead and looked -- stunned.

"Well, yes, to be honest..."

"Oh god," she moaned, "you don't understand! You've got it all wrong!"

"Then what..."

"I'm trying to repay you!"

"Repay me? What for?"

"For us! For you!" Helena drew a deep breath. "I don't remember everything, but I can remember enough. If I forgot all of our thirty years together, I'd really be empty, wouldn't I? And I remember that you were -- you were great to me. All those years... I think that you were faithful to me, even late on, when I was getting old and wrinkly and losing it. And we were in a business full of gorgeous young girls... And now I'm a young girl, even if I have lost my boobs, and I want you to have some fun with that. It'd be the least I could do, even if I didn't fucking want it myself!"

"Oh," James muttered, "oh, god."

"Yeah," said Helena, still standing naked and flat-footed. "I thought that screwing a nice guy was a good idea, and it turns out that you're too nice to screw me."

"I'm sorry," James said.

"No, I should have seen that you were missing the point." Helena flopped despondently onto a nearby sofa. "You always did." She sniffed, and James saw that she was nearly crying.

Perhaps it was a vestige of that paternal feeling that moved him, but he found that he couldn't leave a weeping woman uncomforted. He moved over, sat beside her, and wrapped her naked shoulders in his arms.

"Sorry," she said, looking at him. "That was a mean thing to say."

"True, though." He kissed her softly on the forehead. "You obviously remember me too well."

"You bet I do," she said, and grabbed his head with both hands, moving it to kiss him full on the lips.

It was a flagrant move, and James wondered why he didn't resist it. Perhaps the wiry strength of her new frame made resistance seem pointless, or perhaps her slim femininity got through to him at last. In any event, he responded to her kiss, entangling his tongue with hers. She moved one hand to his chest, caressing him through his shirt, then, even before either of them broke the kiss, she moved it again to his crotch, fondling him through his pants.

He stopped kissing her, but she just grinned at his startled expression. "C'mon," she said, "let's see how this new body works."

At that point, he realised, he couldn't argue any more without making the woman who he had in his arms break down -- and there was too much of Helena in her smile and her manner for him to even think of that. And so he rose to his feet and put his arms around her with half a thought of carrying her to the bedroom -- but she clambered to her own feet and then jumped, wrapping muscular arms and legs around him and squealing with glee. She didn't weigh too much, and he was still in good enough shape; he was able to carry her that way instead, albeit with his hands supporting her taught buttocks.